02281996 - News Article - Mother presents testimony against child advocate

Mother presents testimony against child advocate
Post-Tribune
February 28, 1996
http://infoweb.newsbank.com.proxy.portagelibrary.info/resources/doc/nb/news/1084D866EEB250A9?p=AWNB
With the scars from her caesarian section still fresh and with her infant son in her arms, Kim Cole once found herself in the cold, tossed out by an abusive, alcoholic husband.

Two years later, her ex-husband has custody of the same son, at the recommendation, she said, of the child's court-appointed advocate.

Cole, 31, of Chesterton, came to Porter County Council Thursday with others opposed to Children/Parent Center Inc., of Chesterton.

The center, owned by Beatrice Lightfoot, the advocate who represented Cole's infant son in Cole's custody dispute, is seeking to be placed on the 1997 Porter County budget to provide supervised visitations ordered by the county court system.

Currently Family House of Valparaiso arranges for such supervised visitations between parents and children.

''I want the public to know that a program like this is going on. Any time, anywhere, someone may have the power to take your child away from you,'' Cole said.

Cole said she opposes Lightfoot personally and the advocate system in general.

Karen L. Klein, director of Children/Parent Center Inc., in waiting to appear before the Council Tuesday night, said Lightfoot is a court-appointed advocate with additional training in CASA, a volunteer program courts use to train advocates for children.

Slated to appear before the Council to present information related to the center, Klein defended the advocate system, although she admitted that supervised visitation programs in the United States are an unregulated industry. ''The Supervised Visitation Network of U.S. and Canada is currently working on standards for that,'' she said.

A former employee of Family House, Klein said 90 per cent of the cases where supervised visitations are ordered are due to substance abuse in the family. The others usually involve hotly contested divorces, she said.

Klein said she recalls Family House billing the county for as much as $5,200 in a month for services provided to welfare clients alone.

She said that she hopes the Children/Parent Center, Inc. will provide extended hours and a location more appropriate for some clients.

During a break, before Klein's presentation was heard, Porter County Council president Ruth Ann McWhorter said Family House is listed by name in the county's budget and that the service is part of the court's budget.